Mid-Season Attitude in a Scrimmage
 

Scrimmage last night. #22 acting all bad and tough out there. Flips the ball away after every carry. Asked nicely by the U to let it lay. Doesn't listen. A few plays later flips the ball away again. The umpire says when you are down, you need to let the ball lay. He mouths back, "I'll put the ball where I want to put it," and walks back to the huddle. U calls after him, "NO you won't." I walked into the huddle and told him, "in a game that will get you an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty." We relayed the message to the sideline that we were having a problem, and the coaches took him out the rest of the game.

I hope he gets his attitude straightened out for the rest of the year, or it'll be a long one for him.

Season may be long but the games won't as it sounds like he will be sitting before the 1st quarter ends.

Sounds like you handled it well. If the coach is worth a crap, the kid will be running on Monday and have more respect for the officials in the future. If not, he will be causing his teams some long yardage.

Why not flag him for USC? My experience is that coaches really appreciate those scrimmage USC flags - really sends a message when that flag is on the ground and you're marching off 15 yards, even in a scrimmage. What best is that it's a big deal in a setting that means nothing.

In our pre-season scrimmage last year, we ejected a player for fighting. He actually punched one of his own teammates playing on the opposite side of the ball. Once our U threw the flag and we ejected him, the coaches proceeded to do theri job with him. After the scrimmage, the head coach thanked our U for addressing the situation in the manner he did so he could fix it now rather than later.

Just wondering - did you report this to the state? If so, any idea what action they took?

We did not report this ejection to our state association as it was not part of the regular season. We allowed the coach to take whatever action he deemed necessary. To be honest, I don't think reporting the incident to the state even crossed our minds since it was a scrimmage and not a real game. In our minds a scrimmage is another form of practice only having officials present. Maybe I'm wrong here....I'm sure I'll hear about it if I am.:)

We have been instructed to report any ejections to the state. Whether scrimmage, regular season or playoffs, the OSSAA requires the game official(s) to notify the state office immediately, as additional punishment will be applied to the ejected person.

I can tell you that a few years back, we ejected a player from a varsity game and the school was the one who placed punishment on the player, not the state association. The school made the player write a letter of apology to each of the officials on our crew and then made him sit out the first half of the next game. I"m not sure our state association would have placed punishment on a player for a scrimmage.

I wouldn't think to file a report on a scrimmage either.

In Missouri, the report goes to the state and the school. The state association does not take any action, but must sign off on the action that the school takes. If the action does not satisfy the state, they don't close the report. The school is prohibited from post season play in all sports as long as they have a report outstanding. There are some standard punishments like sitting out a game for fighting, etc.